Rice is the most popular and versatile accompaniment to some of the tastiest of dishes and gravies all around the world, and when you are looking for the best tool to beautifully cook your rice with, it only makes sense to get a rice cooker from a country that eats plenty of it. Before we look at the best rice cookers from Japan, let’s look at some points to consider and reasons to buy one for your kitchen.

Benefits of a Good Japanese Rice Cooker

If you have ever cooked rice, you must be aware of the inconsistencies and the number of issues that come to the surface with it. Rice may sometimes turn mushy, sometimes sticky, sometimes frothy and other times burnt.

The range of recipes you can imagine with rice are innumerable – garlic rice, rice pudding, rice bowl salads, teriyaki chicken with rice, and so much more is possible with rice. But, what would surprise you more is the plethora of dishes apart from those above that you can cook up almost instantly in your new Japanese rice cooker.

Versatile

A good rice cooker can flawlessly deliver the best quality of rice each time. Their versatility is successfully stretched when they are used as food warmers, baking tools, vegetable steamers, soup makers, etc. The ease and accuracy of measurement are increased with the guiding measuring cups that come with almost all top models of rice cookers.

​Additional functions

Japanese rice cookers have special and pre-programmed modes for conveniently defrosting and reheating veggies, heating leftovers from last night without overcooking them and even baking a cake! And we aren’t just talking about the traditional Japanese rice cakes, but carrot cakes, muffin cakes, chocolate truffle cakes and more!

Now that you have all the right reasons to purchase your brand new best Japanese rice cooker, you must look at the best points to keep in mind while making that deal too.

How to Choose a Japanese Rice Cooker

To help you pick up the best Japanese rice cooker from our reviewed list, here are some very useful hacks.

Look for the watt rating of the rice cooker. Watts indicate the cooker’s cooking power and speed and the best ones come at higher watt ratings. Look for rice cookers in the 600 to 900 watts range.

Cup capacity matters. Japanese rice cookers come marked in cups – uncooked Japanese rice cups volume. They range from 0.5 cups to 10 cups, and your decision depends on the amount of rice you want to cook.

More capacity means more space required. The dimension of the rice cooker is essential to look at if you have a small kitchen or place on your kitchen top to store it in.

Look for extra features, cooking settings, and the Keep Warm function. Wait times may cool down your rice, sometimes faster than you had anticipated, and at such moments you need helpful settings and features that will not only cook that rice perfectly but also let you work on different ingredients and experiment smartly in your kitchen.

Top 3 Japanese Rice Cooker

Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 Rice Cooker with Fuzzy Logic

The Zojirushi rice cooker is a neuro fuzzy cooker and warmer that works on the Fuzzy Logic technology. The advanced design and technology make it possible for this rice cooker to actually ‘think’ and make self-adjustments to its temperature and cooking time settings to cook the perfect quality rice.

This Japanese rice cooker can yield up to 10 cups of flawlessly cooked rice at a go. The maximum capacity is 5.5 cups of uncooked rice, be it sushi, regular, mixed, brown, sweet, porridge or regular rice. It also has custom made preprogrammed cooking settings for various kinds of rice so that they come out beautifully well cooked and there is no need of rinsing or removing extra water.

The LCD control panel is powered by fuzzy logic too and is very easy to work with. There are inbuilt features in this cooker like – extended keep warm, reheating cycles, automatically keep warm, etc. and comes with a range of accessories, spatulas, rice measuring cups and spatula holders.

The power rating is 680W, and the spherical design of the cooking pan provides uniform cooking. Cleaning is very convenient and so is the removal of the inner cooking pans.

The best part about this Japanese rice cooker is that it is made in Japan and is perfect for cooking all grains and steaming vegetables too. The reliability and culinary prowess and power of the Zojirushi make it the number one best Japanese rice cooker on our list.

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Zojirushi Induction Heating Pressure Rice Cooker

Artificial Intelligence is utilized to the highest degree in the Zojirushi induction heating pressure rice cooker and warmer. The technology helps the rice cooker learn your preferred rice settings and automatically selects one of the 3 pressure settings as per the menu selected which makes it one of the most intelligent systems.

The best part about this model from Zojirushi is the platinum infused coating inside the main cooking vessel which thereby makes water more alkaline to yield the best tasting rice by bringing out its sweetness. A unique feature of this rice cooker is the advanced induction heating rice cooking which allows the cooking of rice more evenly and thoroughly.

A pressure-control valve and safety valve are also provided to lock the pressure rice cooker properly during pressure-cooking. You also get 2 measuring cups, a rice spatula and a holder along with this Japanese rice cooker. Different menu settings are available for the various varieties of rice to help them cook better and with more finesse.

A special setting called the Umami setting provides extended soaking time to the rice to help unleash the 5th flavor of umami making the cooked rice taste much sweeter and delicious.

The automatic keeps warm, extended keep warm, and reheating settings are present in this Zojirushi Japanese rice cooker as well. If you like your rice a little crispy and toasty, then the Scorched setting is here to achieve that too.

The range of extensive features and the 1 liter capacity of this great rice cooker make it the second best Japanese rice cooker on our list.

Tiger JAX-T10U-K rice cooker

The stainless steel rice cooker from Tiger Corporation is immediately attractive, and we love its sleek and contemporary design. The Japanese rice cooker and warmer is able to cook 5 and a half cups of uncooked rice to perfection using the microcomputer controlled 10 cooking menu settings and 4-in-1 functions.

This rice cooker also has built in steamer, slow cook and synchronized cooking features which allow preparing more than one variety of rice and cooking 2 dishes at once.

The automatic and user-friendly cooking logic systems and functions make it possible to prepare the most flavorsome meals at the touch of a button or two. The cooking plate and pans of the Tiger rice cooker are specially designed to keep the flavor, taste, and texture of rice unadulterated.

The lids and plates are easy to remove and clean, and the delay timer, automatic keep warm function and immensely simple to use LCD panel of this 641W Japanese rice cooker get it the coveted third place on our best Japanese rice cookers review.

You can also have a look at these very affordable and helpful Japanese rice cookers and warmers:

Our Pick

We go through hundreds of products listing at Amazon and also study the ratings left by previous buyers to find the best Japanese rice cooker for you. Besides that, we also calculate the overall n﻿﻿et ﻿c﻿﻿ustomer﻿﻿ satisfaction (NCS) grade because we want to see how happy is the previous buyers with their purchase of the product.

From our finding, we can say that Zojirushi and Tiger are the best Japanese rice cooker brands. These brands are popular and received many excellent ratings for their products.

Cook With The Best

As is evident from our list, the Zojirushi is the winner of our best Japanese rice cookers review. With warranty, guarantee, dozens of settings, high functionality, versatility and supreme quality, we are very much assured that all our cooking needs will be fully met with its advanced Japanese rice cookers.

​We hope that we helped you find your perfect Japanese rice cooker that will enable you to serve and consume restaurant-quality rice, vegetables, curries, meals, and cakes while taking very little space on your kitchen countertop.

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About the author

Hi! My name is Gordan Ladd and welcome to Gordan Ladd's Kitchen - a blog that writes all about my culinary experience. Here you can find all sorts of guides and tips for food and cooking as well as best kitchenware reviews and more. Stay for a while and let me know what you think of my site. Or head over to my blog and see all my awesome posts I have ready for you.

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